Abstract
Background and Objective: The COVID-19 has prompted many countries to adopt temporary “lockdown” as an approach to curtail viral spread. This study investigated the food consumption and coping strategies of urban-households in Nigeria during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
 Methods: This cross-sectional, web-based study employed a snowball sampling technique to recruit 477 household heads/spouses living in cities/towns of six Nigerian states by encouraging those sent the survey questionnaire link to share with their eligible contacts. Logistic regression was used to reveal the socio-economic determinants of households’ food consumption and coping strategies, as reported on self-administered questionnaires. Respondents were asked to retrospectively indicate how lockdown affected their food consumption.
 Results: More than half (55.7%) of respondents and 50.8% of their spouses reported a decline in their earning capacity. A high (>4days/week) mean consumption frequency of six food groups was reported. Consuming less expensive (mean, 2.64 ± SD 2.44 days/week) or less preferred foods (1.93 ± 2.04 days/week), and meal rationing (limit portions at meal time -1.50 ± 2.11 days/week, reduce meal number- 1.4 ± 2.19 days/week, limit adults intake- 1.28 ± 2.18 days/week) were the most common coping strategies adopted by the households.. The likelihood of adopting coping strategies was significantly higher amongst households with income decline, the less educated and self-employed categories.
 Conclusion: In this study, a high frequency of diverse food consumption and mild adoption of food related coping strategies was generally observed, however the impact of the lockdown on food coping strategies was significantly felt by some groups. Efforts to target social assistance programs to these disadvantaged groups should be promoted, as it will strengthen their resilience to cope with food crisis.
Highlights
After the outbreaks of SARS in China in 2002, Ebola in West Africa and MERS in 2015, the ending of 2019 was marked by a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in WUHAN China.[1]. COVID-19 is a pandemic caused by a novel human coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) previously known as 2019-nCov.[1,2] As at 1st September 2020, over 25 million cases and 850 thousand deaths have been reported globally.[3]. The African region is so far the least affected continent with 1,257,315 cases and 29,862 deaths[3], but the numbers are increasing.[1]. In Africa, Nigeria has the fourth highest burden of confirmed cases (54,008) and deaths (1,013).(3)
In a bid to cushion the economic effect of the lockdown, the Nigerian government intervened in several ways, most notably; the monthly conditional cash transfer of ₦20,000 ($52) for four months to 3.6 million poor households, regular payment of government workers, food relief disbursement to disadvantaged groups, continuation of school feeding programs and a ₦2.3 trillion ($6 million) economic stimulus package.[7]. Despite these efforts, it remain unknown how these inputs will be felt in a country where an estimated 90 million people live in extreme poverty,(8) about a quarter (25.5%) of whom are severely food insecure[9] and over 80% of the working population are engaged in informal sectors.[10]
Our study aimed to investigate the food consumption and coping strategies of urban-households in Nigeria during the COVID-19 lockdown using coping strategy index and food consumption frequency/diversity, well documented indicators for assessing households’ food security. [12,13,14]
Summary
After the outbreaks of SARS in China in 2002, Ebola in West Africa and MERS in 2015, the ending of 2019 was marked by a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in WUHAN China.[1]. In a bid to cushion the economic effect of the lockdown, the Nigerian government intervened in several ways, most notably; the monthly conditional cash transfer of ₦20,000 ($52) for four months to 3.6 million poor households, regular payment of government workers, food relief disbursement to disadvantaged groups, continuation of school feeding programs and a ₦2.3 trillion ($6 million) economic stimulus package.[7] Despite these efforts, it remain unknown how these inputs will be felt in a country where an estimated 90 million people live in extreme poverty,(8) about a quarter (25.5%) of whom are severely food insecure[9] and over 80% of the working population are engaged in informal sectors.[10].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
